


An Addams

by LectorEl



Category: Addams Family - All Media Types, Batman (Comics)
Genre: Addams family level of violence, F/M, It's pretty tame, etcetera - Freeform, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-23 04:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/618062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LectorEl/pseuds/LectorEl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim has a bit of an unusual heritage on his mother's side. And he refuses to let Steph die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Addams

Tim has bad habits. His only saving grace is that he knows they’re bad habits. After over three years of being Robin, Bruce (and Dick, Babs, Jason, Steph, possibly Alfred, definitely Kon, but not Bart) hasn’t figured out that Tim…isn’t quite human. He thinks about revealing it sometimes - ‘B, you don’t have to worry, if I get killed, I come back’ - before tucking that fantasy away. He’s not a child of the main branch, not a full-blooded Addams. He can’t get away with flaunting his oddities like they can. And even they’ve learned to hide in recent years.

_(A secret: Tim is sixteen. And the year before that he was fifteen. The year before that he’d been fourteen and before_ **that** _, thirteen. Further back than that, and the time line’s a little messy. Tim was seven when he and Dick first met. He’d always been small for his age, and before mother managed to send him to the main branch for a few summers, starved for what he needed. He’d been seven when they met, and after that eight-nine-ten-eleven. Twelve. He’d been twelve for a long time.)_

But still- even Tim has his limits, and Black Mask has hurt Steph, hurt his all-and-everything. Tim, no matter what thin human blood runs in his veins to hide his inhuman heritage, is an Addams.

Steph’s cradled unconscious in his lap, still breathing. Through blood filled lungs and crushed throat, still breathing. Tim is an Addams, and this is a game Aunt Morticia showed him when he was nine. Tim breathes, and gently untangles Steph’s blood matted hair, muttering lulling, distracting nonsense.

Batman and Nightwing are pounding at his door, but the security is the best he’s capable of, fatal deadly things Batman never taught him. By the time they break through, he’ll be done.

“Everything will be fine, Robin,” Tim promises, stroking the curve of Steph’s cheek. “I promise.”

Tim breathes, and Robin breathes with him. Batman needs a Robin. And an Addams needs a touchstone. No more dead birds.

***

Aunt Morticia looks very much like Mother. It sends a stab of hurt-longing-need-abandonment through him. He’d never thought Mother loved Jack enough to die with him. And then his father hadn’t even had the decency to stay dead with her.

“Oh, Tim! How you’ve grown!” Because in their family, even growing up is optional.

Tim smiled crookedly. “Hi, Auntie.”

“Um, boyfriend? There something you want to tell me?” Steph asks, eyebrows arching pointedly. Tim blinks, confused, before slowly realizing Aunt Morticia has a pair of thumb screws and a scold’s brindle hanging from her belt. Tim flushes darkly, and covers his face.

“…I am so sorry, Auntie. We’ll come back at a better time.” Walking in on his Aunt and Uncle having sex. Eww.

“Nonsense. Come inside, you two. Gomez and I can play later.” Aunt Morticia hugs him tightly, enveloping him in the smell of blood and funeral flowers. “We’re always happy to meet a new member of the family.”

“You have _so much_ explaining to do,” Steph hisses at him as they’re ushered inside. Tim smiles helplessly.

“Anything you want to know,” he promises. Anything at all, now that Steph is alive. Now that she’ll never die unless she chooses.

“We’re being followed,” Tim warns Aunt Mortica. “I was stupid. Steph was hurt.”

“Love is the most important thing. We’ll take care of it,” Aunt Morticia promises. Something in Tim uncoils. He’s among family. They’re safe.

“Wednesday! Wednesday, darling, come here!” Wednesday walks down the tall staircase, still twelve, still stick-skinny and pale as death.

“Yes, Mother?” She notices Tim, and blinks, once. “You’ve grown.”

“It has it’s advantages,” Tim says easily. Steph, at this point, jabs Tim in the ribs with her sharp elbow.

“Explanations, boyfriend. Make with them.”

“As soon as we shake Bruce,” Tim promises. Wednesday turns to look at Steph.

“I see. You have good taste, cousin,” she says blandly. “What do you need me to do, Mother?”

“Your cousin’s being followed- be a dear and distract them, won’t you?” Aunt Morticia asks. Wednesday nods, a dark smile crossing her face.

“Do you know where I left my meat clever?” she asks.

“In the toy chest, darling.”

***

Aunt Morticia lets them use the guest room- the ‘boring one’, with only a few knives in the bedside drawers, and a handful of poisons in the bathroom medical cabinet.

“Okay, boyfriend. Explain,” Steph demands, pulling him down on the bed. Tim nods and rest his head on her stomach, looking up at her and listening to the sound of her breathing.

“You were dying.” Tim stares at her chin, trying to mask the raw terror the thought brings.

Steph could not possibly look less impressed. “ _And_?”

Tim licks his lips. “I…stopped it. By making you like me.”

“You’re a meta,” Steph says flatly. Tim winces and shakes his head.

“An Addams,” he corrects. “Only humans are metas.”

“Uh? Boyfriend? Have you _looked_ at yourself in a mirror? Not exactly seeing the inhuman vibe.” Tim thinks of reminding her kyrptonians look human, before dismissing it as off topic.

He pulls a rueful smile. “We’re- mostly human, when you get down to it. Even mother and aunt Morticia are at least seventy percent human. It’s just the other bit that makes us different.”

“And freaking _contagious_ ,” Steph mutters.

Tim laughs, shoulders shaking with mirth. “Only when we want to be. Uncle Gomez was human once too.”

Steph pokes his shoulder. “So what are you? Us?”

“We’re Addams, Steph.” Tim shrugs. “The family’s never bothered with naming what ‘it’ is.” He shoves off the bed, and rummages through the bedside table.

“Here we are.” Tim pulled a thick blade out, and placing his hand down on the table, slashed the knife down.

“Tim! What- _fuck_!” Steph swears, lurching upright. Her eyes go wide as they flicker from Tim’s bloodless stump and his hand currently crawling over tabletop.

“That’s what we are,” Tim says with another shrug.

“Doesn’t it hurt?” Steph asks, poking at his stump. Tim shakes his head.

“Not unless we’re trying. It takes a bit of skill to feel pain like humans do.”

Steph glares at him. “Don’t scare me like that, you jerk!”

Tim ducks his head. “Sorry.”

***

Tim clings to Steph’s hand, and doesn’t look away from Bruce. “It was something my mother left me. Her relatives weren’t fully human.”

True, all of it. Mother left him her blood, and the extended family was as inhuman as Mother had been.

Bruce looks conflicted, his distaste for magic warring with his deep relief that Robin isn’t dead. Tim smiles, the exact right degree of tremulous.

“I couldn’t let her die.” Though if Steph spoils this by giggling, he may kill her temporarily.

“And the…people you stayed with?” Bruce asks, grimacing at the thought. Tim has to bit his cheek to prevent himself from smiling.

“Mother’s relatives. They were the only ones who could tell me if it worked right,” Tim said, flicking his eyes down and leftward.

“Brr. Freaking creepy, that’s what they were,” Steph adds, shuddering theatrically.

“They’re not that bad,” Tim says, coloring his voice with doubt he doesn’t feel.

“Boyfriend. The daughter keeps a meat clever in her toy chest. Cre~epy.” Steph isn’t as good a liar as Tim, but Bruce doesn’t expect deception from her.

“Fine.” Bruce sighs. “Let’s go, Robin. Jason Blood needs to examine you before you’re back on the streets. Tim, your father called. Go home before he goes through with his threat to tell the media.”

And another Addams slips behind Batman, dressed in Robin’s colors. Steph twists around to grin at Tim, holding her thumb up. Tim returns the gesture, and starts walking home.

Really, Bruce should be grateful. He has the perfect Robin now- all of Dick’s brightness, Jason’s irreverence, and Tim’s immortality. Steph’s only going to be more magnificent from here on out. Tim can’t wait to watch her make Gotham her own.

***

Jason Blood takes a long look at Steph, and sighs. “The previous Robin did this, didn’t he.”

“He’s that obvious?” Steph asks, leaning back in her chain. Blood lets out another, longer sigh.

“Etrigan is related to that family. It’s unmistakable.” Blood shakes his head. “I’ll offer you the same bargain I offered your predecessor.”

Steph raises an eyebrow. “I’m listening.”

“Confine your games to each other, do not turn anybody in this city, and I will let let you be.”

“And _I_ don’t qualify as somebody in the city?” Steph asks, somewhat insulted.

Blood actually smiles, thinly. “I do believe in extenuating circumstances. Don’t let it happen again.”

“I’ll pass on the message,” Steph says, muffling a laugh at the thought of Tim’s reactions.

“The most I can ask for, I suppose. Shall we go lie to your mentor?” Blood asks, resigned.

Steph grins at him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me, I already know this is a terrible idea.” Blood shakes his head, and walks out of the backroom, muttering about Addams and their moon-calf eyes.

**Epilogue:**

Steph takes one look at Tim and says, “No.”

“But Steph…” Tim pouts, watching Damian do his level best to stab Dick someplace tender.

“No, Tim. You hate him, remember? Stay in character!”

“But he’s so _cute_ and _murderous_. Wednesday would love him.” Tim continues to stare at Damian, doing his best not to coo.

“If you turn another one of us, things are going to get ugly. Blood warned you,” Steph reminds, voice slightly regretful. Tim sighs.

“You’re right, of course. Still…” Tim’s eyes flicker towards Damian’s abandoned sword.

“No. Just _no_.”

“You get to play with him, why can’t I?”

“I will tell your _aunt_ you’re being stupid again,” Steph threatened.


End file.
